


Chicken Soup from the Winter Solider Soul

by twentystitches



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cooking, Fluff, M/M, Multi, OT3, Sam Wilson flashbacks, Sam gets the flu, Web MD, is scary and efficient, nursemaid!bucky, supersoliders vs. the future, there are feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2391542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twentystitches/pseuds/twentystitches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out getting sicker than a dog was actually for the best.</p><p>--<br/><i></i><br/>"We'll be good, Steve. Right, Bucky? Probability that you'll kill me?"</p><p> Yeah, he let that drop and the silence that came afterward was deafening. He almost thought he was going to have to scrape together the pieces when Bucky picked it up.</p><p> "...on purpose? Low."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chicken Soup from the Winter Solider Soul

No lie- the whole fringe superhero gig was sort of an amazing experience and Sam was pretty much 210% on board with it all but Alaska had been a mixed fucking bag. 

The fantastic thing: coasting through the night sky with real dancing _auroras_ lighting the way. Greens, pinks, blues. Half of him had been honed in on the mission but the other half was gawking, touched and humbled only like one can be surrounded by vastness on every side. He loved flying. Loved it.

The really shitty thing: coming home with some sort of plague. And a new meaning to _freezing his ass off_. 

Though he was doing his damnedest to ignore whatever's got him into submission. Everyone else comes back with scrapes and bruises, Natasha suffered the indignity of a few hairs out of place and he comes back with the flu? Uncool. Lame.

 _Gross_.

There weren't enough Kleenex in the world or at least not in his house. He couldn't remember the last time he got this sick and he also wondered if this was some sort of superbug because at least then that'd be appropriate and a little less lame. But there'd been no mad scientists or doctors in Alaska that they were after some stolen materials of the more metallic nature.

He hadn't been feeling so hot on his morning jog with Steve and it'd gone noted. The American Wonder sped by on his oh- fourth lap around and slowed enough to flip around, jog backwards with a cocked chin and brow.

"You're going slower than normal."

Sam would have sucked his teeth if his momma hadn't taught him better.

"You know what, Rogers? I don't even know why I talk to you. Because you're rude. You know that? Rude." 

"No, seriously, Sam."

" _I'm fine._ Lap me again. Go ahead, I dare you." 

Speedy took off at that and Sam groaned his way through the last of his run, breaking down suspiciously close to the tree in which Steve first picked him up at. They rolled back to his house and Sam got ready for work at the VA ignoring the looks exchanged or thrown his way. He forewent breakfast. Even forewent the usual pass at his OJ.

They sent his ass home halfway through the day. 

_"Whatever it is, we don't want it."_

1300 and he figured a nap would probably help.

He woke up again at 2143, shivering, drenched in his own sweat and to the muffled sound of Steve talking outside of his bedroom, moving with the sort of stride on hardwood floors that he knew as purposeful and readying. With a grace he could only categorize as shambling, Sam dragged himself out of the bedroom and into the kitchen where both Bucky and Steve had come up pausing at.

"Don't say it-" he started and folded himself onto the kitchen table. Head down a second later. _Jesus._

"...you're sick." Bucky, ex-assassin and master of observation.

"I said _don't_ say it."

Bucky had himself perched next to one of the counters dressed in an oversized sweater that covered his arms down to the fingers, the sort he'd only adopted as of late and actually of the sort Sam strongly suspected might have been one of Steve's. At Steve's hesitation Bucky's expression darkened ever so slightly. A tightness around his lips- that was it. His eyes remained flat, maybe shifting a little more than before. Sam knew a retreat when he saw it. He also knew they were on a pretty strong upswing.

"We'll be good, Steve. Right, Bucky? Probability that you'll kill me?"

Yeah, he let that drop and the silence that came afterward was deafening. He almost thought he was going to have to scrape together the pieces when Bucky picked it up.

"...on purpose? Low."

 _He joked_. Delivery was remarkably flat but that was a goddamn joke. Sam, his forehead still flat on the blessedly cool table, gave a huge thumbs up.

If Bucky felt like joking about things like that after the Spaghetti Incident then things were as relatively safe as they could get.

(After the Spaghetti Incident some redecorating had to happen. A poster had been moved to cover the hole in the living room wall. Sam's table needed to be replaced. They went to IKEA and Steve was appropriately overwhelmed as was natural for _anyone's_ first trip. That hadn't stopped him from grabbing a few things of his own, of course.

And they did do the meatballs.)

"See, we're cool. That's pretty much the most I could ask for." He took a moment to drag himself up so he was sitting up straight, ignoring the cotton-stuffed pounding that let loose in his head. And the coughing which ended with a cringing groan."We'll be okay."

It was two against one, even Captain America couldn't stand up to their combined force though god knows he wrestled with it. Posture shifting, lips half-open like there were a dozen things he wanted to say and he was trying to shift through all of them to pick out the right one. Sam's got the feeling one of them would be _That wasn't appropriate at all_ and it wasn't but Steve still got high-strung when Bucky was factored in, still reached for him with kid gloves- careful, so careful even when he was trying his damnedest not to be. 

"Yeah, sure." When Steve's hands came off his hips that meant he finally was standing down. "I'll be in touch when I can." That hesitation lasted about five seconds before all the purpose came back and zoned in on Sam. 

“You're going back to bed, though.”

“I just got _up_.” And with the effort it took to accomplish that he might as well stay up, sit on the couch or something. He knew he was doomed when he saw that look settle on Steve's face. The one that meant trying to argue was really useless, he knows that for a fact and half a dozen trials to prove otherwise.

“Great, congratulations. You weren't supposed to get up in the first place. Let's go.” 

And so his life came to the point where Captain America was literally tucking him into bed, taking his temperature, dosing him with medication and seating himself by his pathetically curled side. He reached out, brushing the back of his hand against Sam's forehead with the little knit of concern on his forehead deigning to deepen. 

“Man, I'll be okay...” Sam huffed out. Mouth breathing. Very attractive. 

“Mm.” 

“You look like you don't want to go.”

“I don't,” he said.

Sam felt like he was freezing but the warmth that came into Steve's eyes chased that away. Honestly, he didn't want him to either. More than that he wanted to be up to the task of going on his own. They were a team now. You didn't leave your partner out there on his own unless there was damned good reason for it. Tightness came with the uncertainty of not being there but Sam nudged Steve with his knee under three blanket. “Sooner you finish up the sooner you get back.” 

Steve left him with a kiss and the assurance he couldn't get sick anymore.

A little after his front door closed Bucky came drifting in, posing himself at the doorway like there was a force keeping him from getting any closer. Sam's eyes drifted back open but it was at least another minute or two before anything was said.

"...you know, I hate watching him go." Sam finally spoke into the silence. 

Bucky said nothing but after a moment his gaze shifted. The thrumming tension that'd been filling the room stopped it's upwards climb. Bucky's eyes lowered and metal fingers dug into his flesh arm. 

"Me too."

_________________________________

The next day was worse. Way worse.

He sweated, puked, coughed, wheezed and swore this had to be some sort of supervirus. 

He caught sight of Bucky surrounded by the entire contents of his medicine cabinet and a laptop in the living room on one trip back from the bathroom. Didn't even feel good enough to veg with TV. 

“What are you doing?” Sam croaked.

“Go back to bed.”

The sheer command behind those words and Bucky's eyes flicking up to him had Sam's blanket practically flapping as he high-tailed out it of there.

 _Sir, yes sir_.

_________________________________

He remembers the last time he was this sick:

_”Wilson, the nurses are talking about strapping you down if you don't stay down yourself.”_

_Riley tended to sprawl when he sat down. The guy had the worst posture in the world when he relaxed but could still bring it together for a salute in a split-second._

_“We're too close, man.”_

_“I know, but they said they'd wait. There's some fine tuning they're doing on the packs anyway.”_

_“I want this.” He couldn't have gotten sick at a worse time._

_“Fuck it, Sam. I'm not taking anyone else as my wingman. It's you or I'm not flying those things so just fucking chill out. Get_ better _. Stop trying to do push ups when you're at 102, for the love of god.”_

_________________________________

One time he woke up and Bucky was standing right above him over his bed, whatever barrier he'd felt about entering had been apparently demolished. On the gleam of his metal arm he balanced the laptop.

“Everything on this website ends up saying you have cancer.”

It was at that moment Sam Wilson discovered he could choke on a cough.

“Dude, you are...the most terrifying nurse I have ever had.”

Sam will look back and wonder if he hallucinated it because the fever did get pretty high in those first two days but he could have sworn Bucky's lips twitched and threatened their way into a smile. 

_________________________________

On the third day he launched an offensive and took over the couch.

“Go back to bed.”

“No, the TV's out here. I'm gonna watch some stuff.” Blankets, pills, tissues and waste basket came with him in a precarious but tightly gripped trundle. 

“Are you eating?” Sam asked as he started to settle himself. Two days and he hadn't cooked anything.

“I'm fine.”

“ _Are you eating_?” He could play this mothering game with the best of them. He didn't like the hesitation which kicked something off in his brain and got him struggling to stand up only to be shoved back down. 

“I'll get something right now. Stay.”

“Bucky-”

“Stop being difficult. Steve told me to take care of you.” 

Shit, he gave him _orders._ Definitely not on purpose though he was sure the request was construed as so. Sam sat back and Bucky took that as enough surrender to stop holding him down. 

“You take care of everyone else.” 

Maybe there was more behind that but Bucky utilized words sparingly. He straightened up completely and fished a hair-tie out of his head, apparently uncaring that it was one of the bright pink scrunchies left over from Sam's nieces when they spent the night. Kids shed crap like that. 

“I'll make soup.”

_________________________________

Turned out that Bucky was able to make an excellent chicken-noodle.

_________________________________

On the fourth day he wasn't sure how much _Elementary_ he'd marathoned and Bucky joined him only breaking for a vigilant sweep of the house every few hours. They kept a schedule with the medication which was just as exacting.

He was lulling into another half-dazed, sorta-awake, sorta-not zone when he heard Bucky speak up. “It's familiar.” 

“What is?”

“Doing this.”

Sam had to rev his brain to make the connection, jumping haphazardly from Steve's last kiss and _I can't get sick anymore_ to the stories about how Bucky played constant nursemaid before Steve got the serum. Yeah, this would probably jog something, wouldn't it?

“You okay?”

Bucky, dressed in another sweater that Sam's one-hundred percent sure belonged (or did) to Steve, shrugged. “Feels like home. Haven't had that...in a while.”

Home.

_Home._

He thought about how his life had been turned upside down and fucked sideways since Steve Rogers ran into his life, dragging his assortment of attractive and deadly associations along with him and eventually Bucky too (who was not separate from the previous category at all). Before his life was working at the VA, keeping up with his family spread along the east coast and... occasionally a relationship. One that last for a few months before they both amiably decided not to continue. He hadn't noticed that his house had felt empty, mostly too proud at getting himself together enough to have one and what resembled a life. He poured himself into his work and it was enough but it didn't flow back. It was good but it wasn't...

This.

All three of them felt like home. Home was a little empty with Steve off jumping off god-knew-what and texting smiley faces at least once a day to let them know he was still alive and still a goddamn punk.

Still home, though.

“...me too.” Sam murmured.

It'd been a while for them all.

_________________________________

On the fifth day Sam was no longer feverish but was beginning to believe he had become part of the couch. On the fifth day Bucky finally gave into exhaustion and a whole lot of coaxing and slipped off into sleep on his side of the couch looking softer while unconscious but worn, so worn.

On the fifth day the mission was supposed to be over and Steve was supposed to be coming back.

Sam texted him: **Are you on your way home?**

And it felt like the most natural thing in the world. 

Steve's reply came a few hours later: **On my way. -S**

Signed, kinda like old people did.

On the fifth day Steve came home and Bucky was still asleep but Sam was awake with muted _Wheel of Fortune_ providing some secondary entertainment to his laptop. As frantically and with as little movement as possible he signaled for Steve to keep quiet. 

Bucky barely stirred when Steve smoothed back some fallen strands of Bucky's hair from his face. If anything he leaned into the touch, closed eyes fluttering before settling once more. It was a lingering moment Sam looked away from, muffling a lighter, less sand-papery cough into his shoulder. When he looked back Steve had left Bucky resting where he was, half a pained but happy smile pulling at his mouth.

“Hey,” Sam greeted, speaking as softly as he could.

“Hey,” Steve replied. “I'm home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am somewhat sorry for the title but also could not help myself. Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are loved.
> 
> Edit: I just started up a fandom blog. [On Tumblr.](http://twentyworks.tumblr.com/)


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